Enter the House of Wax

Tuesday

Oct 30, 2007 at 6:00 AMOct 30, 2007 at 8:58 AM

By Craig S. Semon TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

U.S. postal worker Mac McDermott has gone from delivering mail to delivering mayhem to the masses.

Once the house director at the former Spooky World theme park in Berlin, the former Leicester resident now lives in West Palm Beach, Fla., and works with celebrities booked for the annual Screamfest Horror Convention.

The most life-size wax figures Mr. McDermott had at one time was six: two Frankensteins, one Dracula and three Cartwrights.

“I bought the Cartwrights to make them into horror figures,” Mr. McDermott said. “Hoss was going to be Leatherface, Little Joe, the teenage werewolf (both of which were played by Michael Landon), and Lorne Greene as Zackerley. I didn’t have the heart to modify these figures so I sold them to a huge ‘Bonanza’ fan.”

Mr. McDermott still has the Lugosi wax figure sculpted by Henry Alvarez (“the master of wax”). Made in 1991, the Lugosi came from the Hell House of Hollywood and once resided at Spooky World.

While he keeps his life-size wax sculptures in storage in Massachusetts, Mr. McDermott said he has to have something wax in his house.

“I have a life-size Frankenstein head, custom, that’s in my living room above my TV, so when I sit with my twin girls, we can look at that beautiful wax,” he said. “And my girls, they love Frankenstein, too. Latex masks are cool, but wax is absolutely amazing.”

Three years ago during hurricane season, Mr. McDermott was very concerned about his Frankenstein head melting, so he took it to the Jupiter police station, where they have backup generators.

“I said to them, ‘I know this is going to sound weird, but is there anyway you can hold this head here in the AC until my AC goes back on?’ ” he said. “These guys were awesome. They were so cool. They loved it. They thought it was so funny that I had a head of Boris Karloff.”

Mr. McDermott’s first taste of horror was being handed a “barf bag” when he and his dad passed by the old Capitol Theater in Worcester, which was showing “Mark of the Devil.”

“I was a little kid. I just remember going by that line and saying, ‘Dad, what the heck is going on?’ ” Mr. McDermott recalled. “There was a guy with a loudspeaker saying people are throwing up in there and passing out. And I wanted to go in there.”

Instead of taking his son to see “Mark of the Devil,” Mac’s dad took him to Toomey’s Rent-All Center on Park Avenue to check out Halloween masks. And one mask, a Creature from the Black Lagoon (made by legendary mask creator Don Post), left such a lasting impression on him that it still connects him to his father.

“It was $45 30-something years ago and that was a lot of money,” Mr. McDermott recalled. “So I said, ‘Dad, can I get that mask?’ And he said, ‘Mac I’ll take you down to Spag’s. We’ll get you a different mask.’ ”

Even though his father did buy him “a really cheap mask at Spag’s that cost 99 cents” (which he still has), Mr. McDermott desperately wanted that “Creature from the Black Lagoon” mask.

For years, Mr. McDermott delivered mail to Toomey’s and, for years, the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” mask was still up there.

“When my dad passed away (in 1998), I went in there and I looked up and they had a clearance on all the masks and I took it down,” Mr. McDermott said. “I told Mr. Toomey, because he was one of my customers, ‘You know, I want to be honest with you. This mask is worth a lot of money.’ And he goes, ‘You know, Mac. Take it.’ ”

Because of the deep connection with his dad, Mr. McDermott said the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” mask has become his most prized possession. He even speaks fondly of the Creature and compares him to Frankenstein, “just two monsters that were totally misunderstood; just nice guys that got a raw deal.”